Christmas Video 2025
Dear Parents and Carers, What a truly magical and festive end to an incredible first term at St Barnabas! As we reach the final day of this seven-week half term, I am filled with such pride reflecting on everything our school family has achieved. First and foremost, I want to say a heartfelt thank you to all of you. Your partnership and engagement are vital to our children’s success, and your generosity this term—from the Macmillan Coffee Morning to our wonderful Christmas Fair—has been overwhelming. We are so lucky to have such a supportive community. To our children: you are quite simply wonderful. Whether you were settling into Reception for the first time, representing our school in sports, or shining on stage in our Nativity and "Christmas Cracker" performances, you have lived life in all its fullness. You have worked your socks off, and you truly deserve this rest. For photos of our Christmas fun, please click here: https://www.stbarnabasdarwen.co.uk/photo.../christmas-2025 and also see our weekly news: https://www.stbarnabasdarwen.co.uk/news I also want to extend a huge thank you to our fantastic staff team. Their hard work and dedication ensure our school is a love-filled Christian family where every child can thrive. I am particularly grateful for them being such brilliant sports this week; they completely threw themselves into the filming of our annual Christmas video! The children had a wonderful time spotting themselves in the video during our church service this morning. I think the definite highlight for them was seeing exactly what the teachers get up to in school between the hours of 6- 7! We truly hope you enjoy watching it as much as we enjoyed making it. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ONfmvpqhqag A reminder that we break up early today at 2:00 pm. I wish you all a very Merry Christmas. I hope your holiday is filled with love, laughter, and joy. We look forward to seeing everyone back, refreshed and ready for a new chapter, on Monday 5th January. Take care and God bless, Mrs. Ham
Whole School Christmas Church Service
This morning, our whole school enjoyed a joyful and reflective visit to church to celebrate the Christmas season together. During the service, children from Years 3, 4, 5 and 6 confidently shared the work they have been doing in class, exploring the true meaning of Christmas and the special joy, hope and kindness that Jesus brought to others. Their contributions helped everyone to pause and reflect on the importance of love, generosity and togetherness at this special time of year. We also enjoyed singing a selection of our much-loved Christmas carols, filling the church with festive cheer. A highlight was watching our whole-school Christmas video, which captured many of the wonderful activities and celebrations from the past couple of weeks. The children thoroughly enjoyed seeing themselves on screen taking part in the festivities and were especially delighted to see members of the school staff joining in and having fun. It was a warm and uplifting celebration that truly reflected the spirit of Christmas and brought our school community together. A huge thank you to Parents and to all who attended to celebrate with us. We wish you a wonderful Christmas and a Happy New Year!
Year 1 Science: Our Sense of Smell
Yesterday, we learnt about our sense of smell. We discovered that we have small sensors in our nose which communicate with our brain for us to understand the odour of something. We also found out that without our sense of smell, we would not be able to taste as strongly. Our experiment was to smell vanilla extract, garlic, chilli flakes, an orange and flowers and describe them as either sweet, strong, spicy, fruity or floral. We also gave them a rating out of 10. Year 1 understood that to really smell something, they had to sniff hard as this sucks up the molecules into our nostrils.
Year 1 Provision: Advent Wreaths
This week in continuous provision, Year 1 created some Advent Wreaths in the spirit of Christmas, as we have been learning about Advent in our collective worships. The candle on the wreaths symbolises Jesus coming to our world as the light. Year 1 really enjoyed this and cannot wait to display these at home.
Year 1 RE: Advent Trail
This afternoon Year 1 took a visit to Whitehall Park so that we could see all of the Advent Art created by our school, which fit nicely into our RE topic surrounding the true meaning of Christmas. As we walked to the park, we thought about the Nativity story. Once we arrived, we discovered that the Wise Men brought Jesus three special gifts: gold (to show respect that Jesus was a king), frankincense (to show that people would worship Him) and myrrh (to show that Jesus would understand suffering). We tried to see if any of the artwork showcased the Wise Men. We discussed that most precious gifts are not expensive, but they have thought and meaning behind them. We also thanked God for the most special gift of all, Jesus.
Whole Class Worship - Joy
This week of advent, our focus is Joy. We began by recounting the advent themes we have explored so far: Hope and Peace. Mrs Ham chose Lyla from Year 4 to come to the front to light the three advent candles and she highlighted some of the ways our school family have brought joy to others over the past few weeks. It was heartwarming to hear about some of these, including the Reception class nativity, Year 1 and Year 2’s Christmas Cracker, the choir singing at Acer Lodge care home, and Year 4 writing letters to the residents, plus all of those who have been supporting our latest charity campaigns. We reflected on what true joy looks like and how we can sometimes forget about the simple things when our minds are preoccupied with expensive gifts and the hustle and bustle of the season. Our focus was brought back to the gift God sent - his only son - and how Jesus’ incarnation was the joyous gift that changed our world forever.
KS1 Christmas Cracker
We are absolutely bursting with pride today following the Year 1 and 2 "Christmas Cracker" concert! The children gave a truly spectacular performance. It was wonderful to see them shining on stage, singing their hearts out, and remembering all their lines and moves with such confidence. They have worked incredibly hard over the last few weeks, and today, that hard work really paid off. A huge congratulations to every single one of them for bringing so much festive joy to our school. We would also like to say a massive thank you to you, our parents and families. Whether you helped with costumes, practiced lines at home, or simply came along today to offer your applause and cheers, your support makes all the difference. It was lovely to see so many of you in the audience. Finally, a special vote of thanks goes to our fantastic staff team! To Miss Woods, thank you so much for writing such a wonderful script and for taking on the role of musical director, to Mr Carter aka DJ Carter for organising and playing the music, to Mrs Hegarty, Miss Lyons and Miss Woods for your support with costumes, props and encouraging the children with the actions and to Mr Bloomfield for filming the concerts. We hope you enjoyed the show as much as we did! Photos: https://www.stbarnabasdarwen.co.uk/photo-galleries/ks1-christmas-cracker-2025 Dress Rehearsal Video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r9Lqx9_D2nM Thursday Concert Video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pst0cr5gax8 {gallery:KS1 Christmas Cracker 2025}
Year 1 Fun With The Elf
Today our class elf, Olly, left us a photo frame so he could take “Elfie’s” with the children. They loved taking a picture with the elf. He was also really impressed with their performance today.
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Infant Christmas Party
Our youngest children in school had a great time at their Christmas party this afternoon. They played different games including pass the parcel and did some wonderful dancing. They also had a special visit from Santa and each received a special gift.
Year 1 Christmas Cracker
Year 1 looked amazing in their costumes for the Christmas Cracker. They performed amazingly. The singing, dancing and acting was brilliant and they really found their courage today. We cannot wait to perform again tomorrow!
Year 1 PE: Overarm Throwing
Yesterday, we practiced our overarm throwing skills. We practiced standing with our opposite leg forward and using our opposite arm to aim. We practiced throwing into hoops, on marker spots and through cones. They found it tricky but really persevered. Well done Year 1!
Author Visit to KS1 and Year 3: Janek Puzon
We had a special visit from an author this morning, Janek Puzon. He read his new book “Dean the Baked Bean and his Karaoke Machine”. It was about a baked bean who loves singing on karaoke. The children sat amazingly whilst listening to him read the story and enjoyed it. They also asked some fantastic questions such as: How many books have you written? Do you enjoy being an author? Where do you write the books? How do you write a book? Which is your favourite book that you have written? We are very excited for our delivery of his books to our school library!